Pages

Praise for Twisted Tales Events

'In the past few years Twisted Tales has become a major force in the promotion and appreciation of horror fiction. As well as putting on author readings and signings at bookshops it has expanded into organising larger events, bringing authors and critics together for discussions of the field. I've been involved in quite a few of both and have found them hugely enjoyable and stimulating - I believe the audiences did as well. May Twisted Tales continue to grow and prosper! If you love the field, support them! I do.' - Ramsey Campbell

‘Twisted Tales consistently produce well-organised events for writers and readers of horror. What really distinguishes Twisted Tales for me is the intelligent themes and investigations they pursue, and the high quality of the discussions they always stimulate. As an author I've been invited to three of their events and have been pleasantly startled, to near shocked, by the attendance levels - two out of three were even sold out. I salute anyone who contributes so much to the literary and cultural life of horror fiction.’- Adam Nevill

'Twisted Tales events are wonderful... a great way of promoting 21st century horror fiction. Supported by Waterstone's Liverpool One and really well organised, Twisted Tales brings together established names in the genre as well as new voices and of course readers. Looking forward to much more to come...' - Alison J. Littlewood

Monday, 14 November 2011

Ghoultown's Count Lyle interviewed by David McWilliam

The devilishly
eclectic Ghoultown have thrilled, marauded, and rocked their way across the musical
badlands for nearly 13 years. Born in Texas
circa 1998, Ghoultown has been described by Synergy
Magazine as "the ultimate embodiment of tequila drinking hillbilly
rock". The band's sixth studio effort, Life after Sundown, proves to be
their most ambitious material to date. The album is a unique mix of horror
rock, punk‐twang and spaghetti western flair. Think of it this
way ‐‐ if Rob Zombie and Johnny Cash were tossed into a
meat packer, Ghoultown is what would come out the other side.

In addition to the success of Life after Sundown and Skeleton Cowboys‐
their latest single on Zoviet Records ‐ Ghoultown was
invited to write and perform a new theme song for iconic horror maven, Elvira.
The star‐studded tribute was released as the Mistress of the Dark ultra-single, complete with a DVD featuring the music video by director
Gris Grimly and an audio CD of new songs including “Mistress of the Dark” and
remixes. The video was also featured on Elvira’s nationally syndicated show, Movie
Macabre, in 2011. Hailed as pioneers of hellbilly rock, Ghoultown continues
to make hearts race and skin crawl on their pursuit to turn the music world
upside down ‐‐ one soul at a time.

CL: While doing a horrorpunk band back in the
1990’s, called The Killcreeps, we started writing some dark western type
material, which had a cool feel to it and a lot of unique personality. When I
disbanded The Killcreeps, I thought it would be cool to explore the dark
western angle by combining that with punk, rockabilly, and gothic sounds. I had
always wanted to create something musically that was very unique, so when I
came up with the name Ghoultown, it seemed to be a great concept and had the
potential to stand-out from the crowd.

In 1998, I started writing songs and
putting together the members. It started out with a few of the ex-Killcreeps
and an old friend of mine, Lizard Lazario, who came in on acoustic guitar. I
found a few of the other players by placing an ad in the local music paper.
Over the years we’ve evolved a bit from a more spooky, gothic country sound to
a more hellbilly cowpunk-rock sound, but it’s still the same basic idea of dark
western music that has continued.

DM: When I first heard Ghoultown
described as 'Weird West psychobilly', I thought that it sounded like the most
niche band in the history of music. However, working my way through your back
catalogue, I found that you cover a wide range of styles. Who are your main
musical influences?

CL: My musical taste is all over the place, so it’s
hard to pinpoint any specific bands that influenced Ghoultown. I love old country, hardcore punk, all kinds
of metal, and spaghetti western soundtracks, so any music that fits into those
categories is subject to being thrown about in my song compositions. The cool
thing about Ghoultown is that I can get away with incorporating a wider range
of stuff and it all seems to work since Ghoultown is pretty much its own niche.
There’s no rules except the ones I make up.

There are drawbacks to being your own niche,
though. After years of battling the music industry and trying to advance
Ghoultown beyond cult status, I’ve discovered that people mostly like music
that fits into definable genres. Nobody seems to know what to do with us. But
I’d rather be fronting Ghoultown than some other run-of-the-mill type project,
even though admittedly it would probably be an easier road.

DM: People mean lots of different things by the term 'Weird West', but in
Ghoultown's case you combine gritty Westerns with undead horror. Do you
consciously draw on the films and fiction from both genres? If so, what are
your favourite examples from each?

CL: Yes. In
fact, when it comes down to it, I am more influenced by spaghetti western and
horror movies than anything. When I watch a cool film, it seems to inspire me
to write music. Some of my favorite spaghetti westerns are The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, For a Few Dollars More, Fistful
of Lead, Django, and Keoma. As far as horror films, I like so
many that it’s hard to list. Movies like The
Shining, Return of the Living Dead,
original Halloween, The Legend of Boggy Creek, the classic
Universal and Hammer films, and on and on.

I also
love the old Weird Western comics like Jonah
Hex, so that gets thrown into the mix as well.

DM: I found your collaboration with American horror icon Elvira interesting.
For those who are unfamiliar with Elvira, could you explain her significance to
the American horror landscape? How did you come to work with her and what was
it like?

CL: Elvira
first started back in the 1980s as a horror host for a television station in
Los Angeles. She did a show called Movie Macabre where she played old
horror movies and commented on them during breaks. Later, she did two feature films which were
pretty successful. Anyone familiar with
Halloween should recognize her costumes and products; she’s got countless
action figures, model kits and other stuff that’s been made in her likeness too. She appears at most major horror conventions
these days, and for the last couple of years, she’s been doing a revamped
version of her Movie Macabre show which
airs on syndicated television stations.
Our “Mistress of the Dark” video has been featured on the show and is
also available as bonus content on her new Movie
Macabre DVDs.

This story behind this is that a few years
ago we were playing a horror convention VIP party where Elvira’s manager
happened to see us. He loved the band,
so he told Elvira - Cassandra - about us.
The next day I was hanging out with some friends of mine at the
convention and someone ran up and said ‘Elvira wants to meet you, get to your
booth’. So I headed back to our guest booth
and sure enough, Cassandra came by with her entourage and talked for a few
minutes. During that time she suggested
I write a new song for her. I had a
short meeting with her manager later on and came up with a plan to write a song
and maybe shoot a video if it worked out.
Two weeks later, I sent them a demo of the song, which they liked. From there we recorded it and decided to do a
video. I called up our friend,
artist/director Gris Grimly, out in Los
Angeles and asked if he wanted to direct. He was excited about the opportunity, so once
he was on board we headed out to Hollywood
and shot the video. Cassandra was able
to hook us up with the Magic
Castle out there, so
that’s where most of the video was shot.

She was great to work with and she worked really
hard on the project, even though obviously it wasn’t a high paying gig. I’ve been a long-time fan, so I’m really
honored to have had the opportunity to work with her.

The final product, our Mistress of the Dark DVD, includes the video, a making-of
documentary, and some other crazy stuff that Grimly had us shoot. It’s sort of like a bizarre take on the old Hee Haw variety show from the 1970s. It’s pretty campy, just like you would expect
from Elivra.DM: Possibly my favourite Ghoultown song, 'Drink With the Living Dead', tells a
tale of a revenant forced to challenge strangers to drinking contests each
night as penance for killing a man to steal his last beer. The way it condenses
information and creates atmosphere reminds me of Nick Cave
songs such as 'Red Right Hand' and 'Stagger Lee'.How do you set about
writing a song driven by narrative?

CL: I’m a fan
of Nick Cave and certainly “Drink With the Living Dead” is reflective of his
work on the Murder Ballads album. It’s
also similar to what Marty Robbins was doing with gunfighter ballads in his
classic country songs like “El Paso”
and “Big Iron”. The approach I took on “Drink With the Living Dead” was similar
to these type songs, but even more-so, modeled after Charlie Daniel’s “The
Devil Went Down to Georgia”.
I really wanted to create a song that had a cool narrative story, and being
Ghoultown, of course this should obviously involve some kind of undead
gunslinger! I first came up with the basic storyline, then started writing the
lyric verses. Once I had the meter of the lyrics I was able to strum out some
chords that went along with them. After I had the verse melody, I just let the
progression guide me into a chorus riff. Once I had those two main elements, I
just kept tweaking the lyrics until I got the story like I wanted it. It turned
out to be a really long song - over six minutes - which I thought would be a
drawback. We almost didn’t include it on the album because we thought nobody
would want to listen to a six minute tale about a dead gunfighter in a drinking
contest, but we were wrong! The response was huge on that song. Fans loved it.

DM: As main songwriter for the band, at
what point do you present your ideas to the other members of Ghoultown? How do
they add to the process of fleshing the songs out?

CL: I write all
of the songs on an acoustic guitar and then create a rough acoustic demo using
my 4-track. I give this to the guys so
they can get familiar with the song before we practice. Once we get together, we jam the song with
everyone adding in the real drums, lead parts, backing vocals, and all
that. The song sounds better when it’s
played by the actual band, of course, but essentially there’s not much change
between the demo version and the final song.
If you listen to my demo for “Drink With the Living Dead,” for example,
it’s nearly the same as the final song except the production is not as good and
I use a drum machine instead of real drums and an acoustic guitar all the
way. Oh, and I hum out the trumpet
melodies on the demos, so that’s pretty funny to hear. We always get a big
laugh out of that.

DM: Have you created a mythology or alternate Wild West in which to set your
songs, or do you prefer to treat each one as a separate take on the core idea
of undead in the Wild West?

CL: I don’t
have any kind of universal setting or mythology that I think of when writing
Ghoultown material. I just sort of stick with a general dark western theme, but
that can have a wide range of possibilities from Johnny Cash to horror to
hillbillies. And since we’re from Texas,
we often fly the flag of our heritage which seems appropriate to the band as
well.

DM: I've seen you mention Rob Zombie as a key influence in another interview:
the recent video for 'Drink With the Living Dead' uses a similar animated style
to the one for Rob's 'Lords of Salem'.
Do you see your videos as a way of establishing the visual identity of the
band?

CL: Certainly. The image and artwork of Ghoultown
are very important elements, so visuals like videos help to complete the
package. As a big fan of visuals – like movies, comic book art, etc. – I place
a lot of importance on having kick ass artwork and a cool stage presence to go
with the music. I think the concept of Ghoultown translates well to artwork. Fans
always love our CD covers and posters, and now with the animated type video
we’ve been able to translate the band members into something like animated characters.
We rarely play live shows anymore due to various circumstances beyond our
control, so I’ve made an effort to expand Ghoultown into the realms of virtual
characters. Given the nature of the band,
it seems like a natural progression.

DM: You have contributed music to several
film soundtracks- is this something you’d like to do more of in the future?CL: It’s been fun to write songs for horror soundtracks. It gives me the chance to write a song based
on someone else’s concept or guidelines which is a cool change. I’ve been approached several times about
doing actual soundtracks for westerns too, but nothing has come of it so far. So I’m open to the idea, if it comes along.

DM: Furthermore, would you like to create original Weird West stories,
either for the page or screen?

CL: I’ve done some of that already. About 10 years ago, I developed a horror
western comic series that got picked up by a small comic publisher here in Texas. The comic was also called Ghoultown, but it
focused on a cast of completely different characters, not the band members. We appeared occasionally in the background,
but it was a stand-alone story on its own.
The outlaws were sort of like twisted vampire cowboys, set in a
post-apocalyptic old west. The company
published two issues of a four-issue mini series and then stopped doing
comics. Since I no longer had a
publisher, it just sort of died there. I
just didn’t have time to pursue comics without a publisher helping me. I had my hands full running our label and
doing all the band business, so we sold up the issues we had and that was that.

I’ve thought about trying to bring the
Ghoultown concept to the screen by writing a script or something, but so far I
haven’t gone down that path. I have a
lot of cool ideas about weird west concepts, so maybe at some point I will
pursue this further. I know a few guys
that do movies, but making any kind of western, especially one that will
require a spooky slant to it, is something that will require a substantial
budget. If I do something along these
lines, I just want to make sure it’s done right, not just some lame, low-budget
horror western, ya know.

DM: It’s a shame that you don’t play live much anymore- from the clips I’ve
seen on YouTube it looks as though you put on a great show. What are your plans
for taking Ghoultown forward?

CL: The live show is definitely a strongpoint of
Ghoultown, so it sucks that we can’t bring it to more places. But after 13 years of doing this, it’s become
increasingly more difficult to keep pounding the pavement at our own expense. Now that some of the guys have families and
can’t just quit jobs at the drop of a cowboy hat, we’ve had to be more
selective in our gigs. We can obviously
play locally in Texas, and we’ve done short
runs to Europe, and one-off gigs that we can
fly to, but really those are a drop in a piss bucket compared to all the
potential places we’d like to play. We
had hoped that having a record company would help boost us to real tours, but
that didn’t happen. Now we’re back to
doing things on our own again, so the touring opportunities are very
limited. When it comes down to it, we
don’t make any money at this, so it requires a lot of time, effort and our own cash
to keep it going. Nothing that any other
band at our level wouldn’t also tell you, so I don’t think we’re any kind of exception. It’s just that it’s really gotten to us in
the last few years because we feel that the band is so good and had such great
potential, that it’s a shame we can’t bring the show to more fans. But that’s the reality we’ve had to face
regardless of our love for the music. At
this point, we’re shifting the focus on being a recording band, not so much a
performing band.

For the next release, I’m putting together
a collection of rare and unreleased tracks that have built up over the
years. Newer fans have a hard time
getting a hold of the old material, so I thought it would be great to put this
on one release with all the tracks remastered.
It’s gonna have a few live tracks, and maybe even a new song as well, so
probably about 18 to 20 tracks total. I’m even gonna throw in some of my original
concept demo recordings from 1998.

DM: Outside of Ghoultown you also write for the horror magazine, Rue Morgue. How did this come about and
do you see yourself pursuing a writing career alongside the band?
CL: That started over a year ago when some of the Rue Morgue staff was down here for Texas Frightmare Weekend. I’d met several of the guys before, and they
had featured Ghoultown a few times, so we were already friends. Around the time they were in Texas, I had been
inspired to write a few articles on horror movies that featured Bigfoot-like
monsters, so I just happened to mention that to the guys and showed them an
article. They really loved it and so we
talked about me contributing to the magazine on a regular basis. After discovering a mutual fascination with
cryptozoo creatures, we came up with the idea for my Monstro Bizarro blog which
is featured on their website. I also write for the print magazine doing
features, movie reviews, and stuff like that.

I also have a non-fiction book coming out
next spring on Anomalist Books, called “The Beast of
Boggy Creek: True Story of the Fouke Monster”.
The book covers the complete history of the Fouke Monster, a creature
said to inhabit the swamplands of southern Arkansas
just three hours north of my home in Texas.
It was made famous by the Charles B. Pierce classic horror film, The Legend
of Boggy Creek, so I cover both the monster and the making of the movie
which is really fascinating. It’s a long
story as to how I got interested in this subject, but basically I met some
people who had been part of the movie and also several credible people who
claimed to have seen the creature at one time or another. Once I started looking into the whole
subject, I was inspired to write a book on it.
If people want to know more about my various writing projects and about
the Boggy Creek mystery, just visit my website.

So back to the question about me pursuing a
writing career. This is definitely the
case. I’m starting work on a second book now, so I hope
to continue expanding my professional writing career as I move forward. I will continue to push Ghoultown as much as
I can, but I think at this point the future is in the hands of the fans. We’ve created the ultimate weird west monster,
so I guess we’ll see if the townsfolk burn it or sustain it.